Running an application server written in PHP has been feasible for some years. One of the robus mature options for this has been PHP-PM, a process manager. Now the project has reached a major milestone with the release of 1.0.

The PHP-PM team released the first stable release on 8th of January 2018. It builds on the work done for some years and it builds on ReactPHP. ReactPHP is a low-level library for event-driven programming in PHP.

Updates for this release include the addition of bridges for static handling, PSR-7 integration and version bumps for Symfony components used in the system. You can check out the full list of changes in the release notes if you want to see more. The post also links to other articles with more reading and tutorials covering PHP-PM and how to put it to use (including Docker integration and basic benchmarks).

On the Hackernoon site Youssouf El Azizi has posted a quick tutorial showing you how to use Vessel with Docker and Laravel to create a "zero config" setup quickly and easily.

This article is a step-by-step to get started with Vessel ( the new way to setup the Laravel setup config with docker).

[...] Vessel is a lightweight docker environment for Laravel, that means it is just a small set of files that set up a local docker development environment per project and there is no extra thing to install globally, expect Docker system itself.

The tutorial then walks you through the process you'll need to follow to get the environment up and running including the installation of Docker/Docker-compose. It then walks through the installation of Vessel and what images (containers) it will set up when executed. The post ends with a "cheat sheet" you can use when working with Vessel providing some common commands.

On the Master Zend Framework site Matthew Setter has posted a new tutorial showing you what it takes to get started using Zend Expressive. The article is more about the environment the framework would live in (well, the application written with it) than the actual framework itself.

Ever thought that it's hard to get started with Zend Expressive? Ever think you need to know Vagrant, Ansible, Docker, Puppet, Linux, and more? Nope, you don't! In this post, I'm going to show you that, while these tools can help, if you’re just getting started with the framework (such as learning about it), you don't need them.

I want to be clear, before we go any further, that I’m not talking about doing fully-fledged development. [...] So what I’m talking about here is when you’re just starting out and getting a feel for Zend Expressive, right up to building a test application. I’m not talking about a fully-fledged, deployed application that requires copious tests, one backed by a CI/CD pipeline.

He then talks a bit about the history of Zend Framework and how one of Expressive's goals it to help take some of the sting out of using it. Following this he covers some of the possible tooling you could use including two environment tools: Docker (useful but not required) and Vagrant (handy but also not a must). Finally he gets to the actual requirement - a version of PHP 7 installed on the system. He shows how it, along with its included web server, can be used in development to host an Expressive site by itself.

Docker containers have been becoming an increasingly common deployment method in the past few years. I've deployed some Node.js app in containers, which are very simple to deploy as there's a single process that's easy to run. I found running PHP to be more complex.

[...] When running Nginx and PHP-FPM you are forced to run a pair of of containers, one for PHP-FPM and one for PHP-NPM. [...] But I would rather just run a single process to run the application. This is how Go, Node.js and even .NET Core apps are deployed. Can PHP do without a middle man?

While it may not be the most performant way to run a PHP and Symfony application, the author wanted to try it out and see how difficult it might be. The code for the setup is provided and, while the end result was a bit difficult to get to, it was possible.

Asmir Mustafic has posted the next part of his series covering the deployment of Symfony applications. In this latest article (part four) he focuses on some of the final steps of the deployment process.

This is the forth post from a series of posts that will describe the whole deploy process from development to production. The first article is available here,
the second here and the third here.

After covering the steps 1-3 and having prepared our infrastructure, we can see how to deploy our application to production. Almost the same approach can be used to deploy not only to production but also to test environments.

He starts with the workflow for the deployment process, creating a flow where the "git push" should trigger other actions based on the branch pushed. Then CircleCI will fire off a series of jobs to handle environment setup tasks, connecting to a VPN and deploying the code. This includes a bit of preparation, credential handling and the Docker setup and push. Each step along the way also includes all of the YAML configurations you might need to replicate the deployment.

He picks up right where the last article ends and continues setting up the Docker environment for the application. Once he figured out a small snag in the setup he was able to get the basic documentation (the list of endpoints) up and running.

Next he creates a "material design" administration interface using React showing how he pulled in the requirements he needed to get the interface up and running. Code is included for the interface and a screenshot is included so you can see the end result.

Getting started with Docker and PHP can still be a steep learning curve. You might feel that you don’t need something like Docker and that Vagrant or full local development work just fine. I still use local development on some projects because the barrier to entry is small.

You will likely face scenarios where you require different versions of PHP, work with multiple developers, and seek consistency between environments. When you’re working with a team, you need a consistent way to develop. I’ve been on teams where different versions of PHP and MySQL varied between developers. I want to show you how Docker can fill the gap of providing consistent development environments, and do so without a huge amount of added complexity.

He starts with some background on why he decided to learn how to use Docker for his PHP development and how it has helped simplify his setup. He then walks you through some of his initial steps with Docker, providing the commands to create a new Laravel project and the structure he uses for his projects and the base image. He covers the contents of the Dockerfile, the Apache VirtualHost setup and how to build out the image. The post also includes instructions for:

running Apache

running "docker compose"

adding a volume for local development

adding MySQL

running commands

how to connect to the MySQL instance running in the container

Each item on the list includes configuration changes and commands that you'll need to get everything set up and running in a simple Docker container on your system.

In a tutorial posted to his Medium.com site Dragos Holban continues his series walking you through Symfony for PHP applications. In this latest part of the series he shows you how to use Docker to set up an environment for a Symfony-based application.

As you probably know, I am a big Symfony fan :) In the last few years I used Vagrant to set up my Symfony development environment more or less as described here. But we now have Docker and it’s time to move forward with a new setup. Docker containers are generally more lightweight than Vagrant virtual machines, so starting and stopping them is extremely fast. They also take a lot less disk space.

He starts by sharing an example Dockerfile and docker-compose.yml to help set up and configure the environment to be ready for use. The configuration sets up Apache, PHP 7, MySQL, git, Composer and several PHP extensions. It then installs a fresh instance of Symfony and runs a bash file to finish the setup. He shares the contents of this file and the VirtualHost configuration for the web server. Finally he shows how to run the setup via the Docker command line tool and what you can expect to see when things are running smoothly.